VMware to turn ESXi into freeware

By Si
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Grand Master

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Virtualisation specialist VMware announced sluggish growth for the second quarter of 2008 and anticipated slow expansion for the near future as businesses hold back from signing large deals.

Service revenue was up 85 per cent, totalling $172m (?86.2m), while software licence revenue rose by 39 per cent to $284m (?142.4m) from the same period last year. Total revenue for the period failed to meet market expectations and reached $456m (?228.7m), up 54 per cent from the second quarter of 2007.

As Microsoft launches its own HyperV virtualisation product, increased market pressure will force VMware to start giving away its core product ESXi hypervisor available for downloading from 28 July.

Earlier this year VMware announced plans to freely embed ESXi into X86 server hardware from Dell, HP and others.

I know that Microsoft can afford to play a long waiting game," said Paul Maritz, chief executive at VMware. However, in markets where another company already has a sizable lead - as VMware does in virtualisation - it can be " really hard to catch [up] even for Microsoft," he said.

Market sources believe the move is intended as a channel to sell more profitable products and help the company fend off competition, although VMware says that the decision is part of the companys overall transition in the market to providing the management tools that organisations use to control and manage their virtual infrastructures, rather than being just a hypervisor provider.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/vdunet/20080723/t...re-6315470.html

UPDATE: It's out: http://www.vmware.com/go/getesxi

Edited by Si
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https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/650894-vmware-to-turn-esxi-into-freeware/
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Proficient

Si_

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It does have a console, you just have to run it on a remote computer. Think of it like Server 2008 Core with the MMC snapins on remote servers.

Aah so you're the guy with the name I tried to take :p great minds eh

Is this like a proper GUI console? When you set the server up (at the server) is that all CLI?

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punklefish

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Aah so you're the guy with the name I tried to take :p great minds eh

Is this like a proper GUI console? When you set the server up (at the server) is that all CLI?

It is a proper GUI management console but it still takes some learning (quite a bit different from their consumer level stuff). When you set up the server it is a menu based text interface so getting it set up is fairly easy.

Grand Master

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Yep you use a proper GUI with console access etc on your desktop or laptop. The ESXi server has a simple text-mode menu. There is no CLI everything apart from IP settings etc is done remotely with the VMware infrastructure client.

vi3_ncpus.png

And yeah, it's mine :p

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Arkos Reed

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ESXi has been planned to be given free for a couple months already, however it's only the base product (worth $400/500 I believe), a bit like HyperV, very basic, if you need the full capabilities of ESX Enterprise (V-Motion, etc) you'll have to pay for them

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Si_

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Yep you use a proper GUI with console access etc on your desktop or laptop. The ESXi server has a simple text-mode menu. There is no CLI everything apart from IP settings etc is done remotely with the VMware infrastructure client.

And yeah, it's mine :p

Thanks for that, i'll give it a go :)

We currently have about 25 servers running on 3 windows 2003 vmware-server 1.06 boxes, would this make a worthwhile upgrade in a production environment?

We are looking to go ESX Enterprise come January so I presume our current images will be easy to import to ESXi and again to Enterprise?

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Si_

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Balls, i'll have to do some research into that. I was hoping, since vmware server 2 has the option to upgrade the images but cant downgrade, that this might have something similar.

Perhaps using vmware converter to migrate the os to a new image compatible with ESX? Or would converting an os inside an image of a previously converted server unleash all kinds of pain?

Neowinian

mevi

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Balls, i'll have to do some research into that. I was hoping, since vmware server 2 has the option to upgrade the images but cant downgrade, that this might have something similar.

Perhaps using vmware converter to migrate the os to a new image compatible with ESX? Or would converting an os inside an image of a previously converted server unleash all kinds of pain?

We just upgraded to ESXi (bah bought from HP for $719+tax less than a month ago!) from VMWare Server 1.0.4

Heres how to make the transition easy, assuming all your disks use LSILogic or BusLogic drives:

Create a new VM in ESXi, use "Custom" and select don't create a disk.

On your vmware server host, use "vmware-vdiskmanager -r (source disk path) -t 2 (destination disk path)" to convert your disk to "monolithicFlat"

Open "disk.vmdk" it is just a text file

Change "monolithicFlat" to "vmfs" and change "FLAT" (note the case!) below that to "vmfs".

Upload the disk to the new VM location in the datastore. Edit hardware, add drive, use existing disk, power on virtual machine and you're good to go. No need to pay for vmware converter. (takes a little while to convert, but hey, beats the licensing cost)

Proficient

Si_

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It's almost too easy. Had the server installed and congured inside 15mins, used vmware converter to convert a vmware server image to an esxi one and import it into the server and had it online within another 20mins. I guess the downside to the free converter is you can't to do mass conversions, but it suits the amount of machines I need to do.

It's miles better than vmware server so if you have a compatible box theres no reason not to be using it.

Edited by Si_
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